This invention relates to a system for transporting various kinds of cops to an automatic winder.
Cops on which yarns that have been spun on a fine spinning frame are wound are normally rewound in order to remove defects of yarns or to obtain packages of a size and a configuration adapted for a succeeding next process. An automatic winder used for this rewinding process includes a number of winding units. In each winding unit, a yarn is drawn out at a high speed from a cop supplied thereto and is taken up by or wound on a package which is rotated by a driving drum. If the yarn on the cop has been completely removed therefrom, then a next new cop is supplied and a yarn thereon is knotted or spliced with the yarn on the package so as to effect another winding operation onto the package. In this way, a plurality of cops are supplied in order to obtain a fully wound package. Especially in ring spinning frames which prevail over other fine spinning frames, the quantity of a yarn wound on a cop is small and is limited to some hundreds grammes due to their structural restrictions. Thus, assuming that the quantity of yarn on a cop is 200 grams and the quantity of yarn on a fully wound package is 3 kgs., a quantity of yarns corresponding to at least 15 cops must be supplied in order to obtain a package.
Further, the spinning speed of a fine spinning frame is commonly 15 to 20 m/min, while the winding speed of an automatic winder is as high as 1000 m/min. Accordingly, if 50 to 60 fine spinning units of a fine spinning frame are provided for a single winding unit of a winder, the fine spinning process and the rewinding process are balanced well so that they can be accomplished efficiently as a whole.
Thus, when production of different kinds of products in a small quantity is to be effected under the conditions as described above, in a conventional system, different kinds of yarns are produced on each fine spinning frame and are rewound with a single winder. Accordingly, if five different kinds of yarns are produced on five fine spinning frames each having 400 spindles thereon and are rewound with five winders, then each winder will include 12 winding units and it will be necessary to provide each winder with a driving source, a blower, and so on. The conventional systems are thus extremely uneconomical and are disadvantageous in spacing if winders are not arranged appropriately.